Creativity
by ElliQuinn
Summary: John discovers a side to Joss he had never imagined existed. Christmas fluff from the Meetings AU.


**A/N: a bit of Christmas fluff for all of us who love John and Joss! The usual disclaimers apply: I don't own the characters since if I did no way would Joss have been killed off! This is set in the Meetings AU, although you don't have to read that story first. The main difference is that Carter is no longer a detective... not that that matters for this story...**

It was a dark and stormy night. Actually it wasn't really that stormy, less than a week out from Christmas - just very, very cold. It was certainly dark, though. Reese arrived home - _home, now there was a thought - _half frozen. He didn't mind stakeouts much, as long as he had his water bottle and a clear end point in sight. He'd handed off to Shaw at 0100 as agreed and driven home, enjoying the quiet.

The cold, though. That had gradually seeped into the car as he'd sat, and there had been no way to fight it off. He hadn't wanted to draw attention to himself by turning the engine on, and there was no way the battery would have survived five hours of running the heater, so he'd sat and suffered as he'd gradually lost sensation in his fingers and toes. He moved around as quietly as he could in the darkened bedroom, and finally got between the sheets. He couldn't control a convulsive shiver, though, as he settled. Joss felt it, and obligingly moved across and wrapped herself around the human icicle which had arrived in her bed.

"You're freezing," she muttered sleepily.

"Mmm, sure am. You don't have to do this, you know," he told her. His arm tightened around her, though.

"'S okay," she said. They lay like that for a while. Gradually he warmed up. He heard her breathing change, deeper and slower as she drifted back to sleep until the cute little almost-snore she emitted told him she was deeply asleep. Warm and relaxed, he dropped off shortly after.

The next morning he could see a prodigious frost on the ground at street level. Warm inside, though, he reflected happily. Joss had made a ranch-style breakfast, eggs and hash browns and fried tomatoes, to which he was giving due appreciation when she appeared from the spare bedroom with a parcel.

"Here," she said, placing it on the table beside him. "I was going to give you this for Christmas, but after last night I figure you could do with it now."

He put down his silverware and took the brightly-wrapped package, raising his eyebrows as he did so. It was soft and spongy, that much he could tell, and he unwrapped it methodically, trying to save the paper. (Why did he still do that?) Joss was sitting opposite him, watching with – _nervousness? _

Something soft, black... he lifted it free of the paper. It was a knitted hat with a subtle textured pattern. Two smaller items of the same soft black material fell free.

"Fingerless gloves," Joss identified them. "You can still use your cell with them, and I bet once you're used to having them on you could still shoot with them too."

He gave her a surprised smile. "They're great, Joss. Where did you get them from?"

"The yarn is baby alpaca, so it'll be soft and warm. I've got a scarf coming along too, but it'll take another couple of days until I finish it."

"Wait, what? You knitted these yourself?"

She was blushing. "I started knitting in hospital out of boredom. But it's great stress relief."

He was staring at her in fascination. "I just can't imagine you sitting knitting. You never do it here at home."

"There's a group of us at the court house who have a weekly stitch'n'bitch session. That's when I mostly do it," she told him. "It's great therapy, a chance to network, and I get to create something at the same time."

"Hey, you don't have to justify yourself to me," he said, smiling a little at her defensiveness. He pulled the hat on, and then the gloves. There was no denying they were warm. Black, to go with his winter coat. He leaned across and kissed her. "Thanks, Joss," he said sincerely.

xxxxxx

That evening he was back on stakeout. The weather had changed, not for the better: gusty cold winds and sleet showers. The gutters were choked with gray-brown slush and the temperature hovered in the low forties. He sat in the car with the alpaca hat pulled down as low as it would go and jammed his fingers into his armpits. His thoughts drifted. He remembered an SAS guy he'd trained with years ago describing a six day long stakeout he'd done in Northern Ireland once, waiting for an IRA guy to show, holed up in some bushes by the fellow's front door. The IRA man never had shown and the SAS team had ended up with hypothermia after six days solid, motionless in those bushes with the rain coming down most of the time. "But it was okay, we had six days of good hard soldiering, so we were happy," his friend had said. It was looking very much as though he was going to get some good hard soldiering tonight. At least the hat was warm, though.

His lips curved up as he imagined Carter, the kickass detective and now the kickass prosecutor, sitting knitting it. Not a side of her personality he'd ever remotely imagined. Though he could see the appeal of creating something. Suddenly he wished he could create something for her in return. He'd picked out some earrings for her for Christmas, but now the gift seemed inadequate, something which had merely been acquired by the exchange of money. Creating something, though. That was hard. He didn't create, he was much better at destroying. Granted, some things damned well needed destroying, and he was more at peace now with that side of himself than he had been in a long time. But still, he felt an unaccustomed yearning to draw something up out of nothingness, something new, something which hadn't existed before, just so he could give it to Carter. As the cold hours passed he considered how he could make this happen.

Xxxxxxxx

Their meal was cooking, filling the air with the aroma of lamb and spices. He'd considered a salmon souffle, which was an old specialty of his, but rejected the idea. Her arrival time was unpredictable and he wanted nothing to spoil this. So instead it was lamb with honey and raisins and aromatic spices, cooked slowly and gently Moroccan-style. There were candles all over the room, their flickers blending into a uniform soft glow. He'd wanted flowers too, but Riley's salary didn't stretch that far, so a single red rose in a vase on the table and lots and lots of candles instead. There was a white table cloth, crystal, wine in a carafe...he wanted everything to be perfect. Creativity, that was the watchword. But something still niggled at him. Something missing.

He sat down at the kitchen counter to await her arrival, and it finally hit him. A hurried search in the office off their bedroom and he found what he needed. He sat down again and began to write.

His handwriting was clumsy - who wrote anything down on paper these days anyway? - but he persevered through half a dozen drafts. At last he was satisfied with what he'd written, or at least not too dissatisfied, and he folded the paper in half and tucked it into his breast pocket. Just in time. The door opened, and Joss backed through, handling bag and briefcase and umbrella as she did so. As she turned into the room, she saw the candles and her brows rose. "Wow. John. What is this?"

"Christmas Eve, Joss. I wanted..." He stumbled to a halt, confused at the surprise on her face. "I wanted to do something special. For you."

"This... this is amazing, John."

He smiled, relaxing. "I was hoping you'd like it."

She dumped her coat and everything else in a heap in the corner and came over to him, threw her arms around him and hugged him hard. He hugged her back as she seemed to be trying to burrow into his chest.

"Some days I think I'm in love with you." Her voice was muffled. His arms tightened around her. "And then other days I know it."

He kissed her softly. "Come and have something to eat, Joss."

He was proud of the way the lamb had come out: tender, moist and aromatic. Couscous to accompany it along with a salad to keep it from being too heavy. Creme brulee for dessert. He almost chickened out of giving her the note he'd written, but the wine helped, and the ease of conversation between them. So as he rose to clear the dishes he slipped it into her hand and then turned away to place their bowls on the kitchen counter and start disposing of the scraps. When he turned back she was sitting frozen in her chair.

"Joss. Are you alright?"

She was blinking hard and breathing through her nose, trying not to cry.

"Joss! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you." This was all wrong. She wasn't supposed to cry. Not Joss, his badass detective.

"It's not upsetting me, John. Did you write this yourself? All of it?"

He nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed. The wine suddenly wasn't helping enough.

"Nobody ever wrote anything like this for me before. Ever."

"I wanted to create something. For you."

She reached out from her seat and put her arms around his hips, pulling him closer. "I love you too, John."

xxxxx

Later that evening, after they had cleaned up, she sat up in bed while he was having his shower. She pulled out the slip of paper again and read through what he had written, chewing a fingernail and smiling to herself.

_If I could sing at all, you would have love songs. _

_If I could write poems, you would have them._

_If these hands could make instead of break, I would paint pictures or carve statues of you._

_I can't do things like that for you, though I wish I could. _

_So instead I will cook you fancy meals, hold you close and keep you safe. _

_I love you, Joss. _

"I love you too, John," she whispered again.

**Merry Christmas, Careesers! If you liked, please review!**


End file.
